


A Sword Neither Could Wield

by unreadlibrary



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, I didn't want to get sucked in but here I am, Mild politicking, Romance, and it's unabashed even if it is GOT, and what if Sansa took the Iron Throne?, and what if just about everyone but the Stark daughters and Tyrion and I guess maybe Gendry died?, currently unproofed all fictional inaccuracies and vague fantheorying are mine, is it sentiment or sentimental? this author will never know, keeping the epilogue vague since we won't know what the heck is going on until 2019, new to this series, one version of the Queen Elizabeth theory, show!Sansa, show!Tyrion with some elements of book!Tyrion, then you might get this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 21:37:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17088194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unreadlibrary/pseuds/unreadlibrary
Summary: That night he asked the Lady of the Seven Kingdoms if she wants their marriage officially annulled.





	A Sword Neither Could Wield

**Author's Note:**

> Editor from the future: Being new to the fandom, until this point I was unaware that GRRM doesn't expressly give consent to fanfic for GOT. While I consider this more a fanfic of the TV show and I will be leaving this up here still, I would like to add the polite disclaimer that none of these characters belong to me, the world and all the hard work put into it has nothing to do with me, and I would laugh at the idea of making money off of fanfic. But since George isn't a huge fan, I might just leave this as my one fanfic for this couple. Also (and spoiler warning, I guess, if you care), I think that Tyrion's answer to what Sansa suggests would be a heckavu lot more complicated than I made in this ficlet, like it could be a very interesting dynamic of tension between them, but I glossed over it here for the sake of brevity. So, possibly OOC in that regard. Anyhow, thanks for stopping by!

 

 

“The Queen is dead; long live the Queen.”

The plot of Tyrion’s life really looked something like this: he was the last surviving Lannister, and he’d lost more friends than he’d ever had at one time in the War. That’s all it was, the War. A war that had cost him Jamie. A war that had cost him Bronn. Daenerys. Jon. Even Cersei. If he reached further back, it had cost him Shae; it had cost him Tysha. He liked to think it was Lord Tywin alone who could take credit for those two, but these were always going to be times of bloodshed with or without his father involved. The most immediate of the War was over now, but Tyrion knew it would take a generation for it to die down and less than a generation for it to manifest in some other form. There was the wasted North, the polluted river, great frozen tracks of sea. Countless dead. A misinterpreted prophecy, a Night King with a mercy death. A conflict that hadn’t ended all conflicts but almost ended all chance at--what? When his cynicism reached new lows, Tyrion paused in the middle of this question. What did he expect life to be like now?

As it were, he was married to the Queen. “The Queen is dead; long live the Queen.” He had learned not to shudder by the time Sansa Stark took the melted Iron Throne, or at least he thought he had. Some strange thrill went through him, like finally finding the right key for an old lock. As for the throne itself, they had since smelted the iron again, reshaped it with splinters from the heart tree in the godswood of Winterfell. Two casualties of War, come together. The Queen had been like the old tree of the godswood: pale and everred, slowly deepening her roots, waiting. There had been no more time for waiting in the aftermath--after the Night King, there was still the winter nights, and they would last for years. Sansa, in all her unexpected legitimacy, hair like fire and eyes like ice, was Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

On the other hand, Tyrion is not really sure if he _is_ still married to the Queen. They do not sleep in the same room, and he is referred to as Lord Tyrion, nothing more and nothing less. There is the fact that she is a widow. There is the fact that the leverage she could wield as an unmarried Queen is considerable. Tyrion, practical passionate Tyrion, ponders this last thought. As a trusted adviser, he will no more soften his strategies for Sansa than he did for Daenerys when first Daario and then Jon stood in her way. Ah, wasn’t it always too soon to think of the dead?

But ponder the thought he does. Because Tyrion is not exactly sure if he is correct. What more leverage did Sansa need? The Seven Kingdoms were hers; three of which would be hers no matter what. Sansa held the heart of the people of the North, and she could with Tyrion at her side easily win the hearts of the others. Could Tyrion count on himself so highly? He was the last Lannister. He was the bloody last Lannister. An Imp, a schemer, a kinslayer, a mostly brilliant strategist with some significant stains on his record. And he was not sure if Sansa would hold onto this unconsummated marriage much longer. They spoke of everything but that.

There are things he can talk about easily: her considerable inheritance, long legs, forehead scraping the sky, the way the sunlight hits her hair, how her eyes retained her clemency even when her clemency had been taken like a common scrap of bone. Even these things he can’t help but describe in metaphor, he can’t hide them beneath the armor of his cynicism. How many things she stripped away, when he was alone and she entered his thoughts. In court, when the sentiments came, he talked faster or scowled more intensely or descended into self-deprecatory quips. He felt ragged after these sessions, and wondered why it had never been this way when had just as madly fallen for Shae.

Then there were the things that were actually difficult to talk about: the careful timing of her smiles, that she was a wolfpup who loved silk, the ragged hope which brought her still to the godswood though she was reluctant to say whether she was entirely in faith or in doubt. Others, too, things he had noticed long ago, but which could be summed up as this: that her strength was the most excruciating to build, a strength which still endeavored to be soft. That balance which was just as uncommon as dignity. She had a _soul_ , Tyrion thought, mouth twisting in a cruel inward jab. Knight of Flowers, now a hack philosopher eh? The things he came up with.

Still, he was alone now and the fire was roaring, and that was enough noisome protection against the silence he always guessed was mocking him. He relaxed into the overstuffed divan, even if he didn’t exactly relax into his reading material. What was he reading? Something relevant to the legislation of the Seven Kingdoms; something he should be taking more seriously. Maybe in the morning, maybe it was time to rest. He’d been skimming for about fifteen minutes now.

Yes, he was fond of his wife because she had, patiently and perhaps against her will, built a soul made of the stuff of song, with iron and wolf’s teeth and silk and snow and that impossible red hair (oh, damn it all, he was ruined). There it was, though he’d always had trouble distinguishing sentiment and sentimentality. He could say such pretty things. He could mean them, and a thousand unpardonables too.

He shut off his tenderness for about a week; enough time to make clear-headed decisions. See to the undramatic labors of the realm. But he did not advise Sansa. He did not talk to Sansa. He watched her, though, as he’d been watching her since she’d come to King’s Landing as no more than a child. She could still use him, he thinks. As a man twice her age, familiar with both politics and war, slaves (and slavery itself), commonfolk and nobleborn, familiar with foreign lands and dragons and guile. She might even want an heir with him, but if she just bid her time, if she just let the young sons of the noble houses grow a little older, old enough to replace the kinsman that had died in the War, she would have her pick of the able-bodied.

That night he asks her if she wants their marriage officially annulled.

They are in the focus room that adjoins her bedchamber. Everything is spare, in the Northern tradition, but the natural tendencies of Sansa still remain: crushed lavender velvet, a shadowbox of dried flowers (years ago it would have been a vase of fresh ones), a decorative if morbid branch of the Winterfell heart tree on her wall, a bookshelf equal parts poetry and history and ledger. Tyrion admires this bookshelf for the umpteenth time while Sansa takes a moment to answer his question. She has paused over her letter to House Tarly, and now Tyrion notes the sound of paper and ink pot being brushed to one side. He turns to find the Queen in an incongruously girlish posture, her hair coming undone and her cheek resting on her inner arm, white hands dangling off the side of the desk. Staring at him like she’s not afraid, but her eyes wider than he’s seen them for some time. Perhaps it's the effect her mouth has on their transparency, for now that it has relaxed she looks less guarded.

“What are you thinking, my lady?”

She answers easily, “That your courtesy is uncommon, my lord,”

“You are the Queen of the Andals, the Rohynar, and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm,” Tyrion reminds her, “I am not your lord,”

“If we are still married,” she said, “Does that make me Queen consort?”

Tyrion, fresh off a week of stifled desire and a steady diet of legal texts, provides a convoluted explanation that can be summed up as ‘not exactly.’

“I’ve been thinking,” Sansa continues, her cheek still resting on her arms, “I’ve been thinking of the Stark family name. I’ve been thinking about Bran’s death, and Arya’s disappearance, and that you’re the last Lannister,”

“You’ve been doing an awful lot of thinking,” Tyrion almost winces that this is all he can manage, but reflexively he relaxes into a smirk.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” He loves her for relaxing with him, for being willing to take a jab at them both. She gets up from the table so he can be awed by her height. It seems so unfair, when she does this, because Tyrion feels he should be used to it by now. He comforts himself by inching his way towards the fire so it can cast his shadow long beside hers. There. Poetic. Now he’s prepared to be her strategist. Now he’s prepared for her incredibly pragmatic, objective, queenly decision.

Ah, how can you not love a queen? This had been the undeniable appeal of Daenerys, Tyrion recalls; like it was yesterday he relives those heady, dangerous days and his tortuous, untoward daydreams. (Who could deny her? She had been less personality than a force of nature. Indeed, she had been fire itself).

Sansa now had the benefit the Queens before her had possessed. That was, she was now a woman. No longer was she gone-between, trapped between Sansa Stark and Sansa Lannister and Sansa Bolton (and Alayne Stone, though Tyrion has never been told this name, just as he’s never spoken to her about Hugor). No longer was she girl, emerging. A slow learner, denied the glory of natural physicality or reckless cruelty or the sword. The sword that neither could wield, Tyrion thinks, but here they are. The Seven Kingdoms are theirs. In whatever capacity ‘they’ entailed. Queen and Queen’s Hand? Queen and King Consort? (He stifles a chuckle). More than anything, Tyrion muses, a Queen and her Witty Fool.

“What was that?” Tyrion had heard something, and shakes off his long inner monologue. A bad habit, that.

“I said ‘fool,’” Sansa turned to him, “For asking a foolish question in the first place,”

It’s like he notices her clothes for the first time. Indigo, quilted pattern, a criss-cross of chains and emblems. A balance between dark and delicate. A subtle floral pattern on the sleeve. Wolves where her collar bone would be. Perhaps he’s been trying to memorize her all this time, this last time he’ll ever feel at leave to be this intimate.

“Ah,” he says, resigned. He has to leave the warmth of the fire at his back, has to watch his shadow grow small again as he goes to her door and leans his weight on it. The cold air of the hall is a slap in the face.

“Husband,” she says. He just leans on the door still, he will not turn to her all hopeful and wide-eyed. He’s not the child in this situation. He’s not the Prince Charming, either.

“Call me fool, my lady,” he says, “But don’t be so cruel as to call me husband now,”

“Close that door; it’s freezing. But kindly remain on this side,” It is a strange mixture of brat and queen, that tone. He obeys.

“Come here,” she says, more gently. As he walks toward her, he imagines the end of the world. Surely that would make more sense than the hope he feels right now. Surely the gods are ready to give him a flick on the back. If he fell on his face before her now, that would be earned, but not this. Not this impossible story. Give him anything, anything at all, a cowardly and melodramatic way out, the return of the dragons from the dead, the Night King’s resurrection, a fire in the kitchens, her coming to her senses, anything, anything.

How long could they make this moment last? But now he’s already standing before her, at eye level with the cold chain criss-crossed between stomach and pelvic bone.

“Yes, my lady?” An instinct to fill the silence. But again she takes her time, scrutinizing him, lips pushed together. Courtesy. It was a word they both favored, and it was a tool they both used.

“If I could put it into words,” Sansa begins, sighing, “I would have said them by now,”

She looks around, momentarily helpless, before she spies what she’s looking for. She motions them toward the divan. They sit, sparing them both the humiliation of the Queen kneeling to speak to her husband. He touches her hand as he used to when she was still a girl. Sansa is still mourning. They all are. They had been, for the most part, since the day they were born. Tyrion is afraid to find out if anything else can exist in this world, a world where bastards and misfits and women go mostly unloved and the winters last for years. But also, where the Night King lay bloodless and dragons had once scrawled the sky.

“You see, you were always so kind. You are kind,” Sansa says.

“Kindness isn’t love, my lady,” he says, and he can think of a hundred other retorts to her claims.

“Oh,” Her thumb twitches.

“I mean--” Tyrion said, “You don’t have to stay with me just because of it. I know you dream of--”

“I’ve dreamed of many other things since then,” Sansa told him, not coldly, just matter-of-factly, “And I know that’s not Tyrion the Advisor speaking to me. You are trying to be my friend, but I need you to be my--”

She was so sure of herself up until that pause. Her eyes were wide again, but this time strained, her mouth thin once more. Even her alarm was tempered with steel. He kissed her, on second thought, because he wanted that mouth to relax, because he wanted to kiss her. But a man might think he was kissing the queen, or a beautiful woman. Tyrion realized how long he had wanted to simply kiss Sansa Stark. Where were the dragons? Where was the kitchen fire? He was feeling like a boy again, and surely that was undeserved. Disaster would be easier to deal with, because then he could leave his guard up, because then it’d just be him and his wits again. Instead, he’s still somehow halfway out and halfway in. Cool air on his face, and her lips still there.

She reached up to touch the hollow at the center of his face. Ah, there had been a minor cosmetic consequence, he supposes. That was something else that simply went unspoken. Joining the scar he’d retained from the Battle of Blackwater, he’d not only managed to lose the majority of his confidants in the War, not only managed to lose his family, not only did Casterly Rock now stand in a ruin of smoke and salt, but he, Tyrion Lannister the Imp, had lost half a nose. He’d thought it a small price to pay for survival; too small a price to pay for a willing kiss. Mania, this is pure mania. She’s still so innocent in this arena, was the type of girl for whom it always would be. And he knew things she’d endured, things she hadn’t told him, things Bran had told him, had told Tyrion so blandly. His cloak of protection had already failed her, but here she was at last. Queen. Stark. Wolf. Wardeness of the North--.

“My lady,” he said, after the kiss had lingered. He was very aware of how long it had been since he’d been truly kissed, even since he’d touched a woman. The tepid peck on the cold lips of the Mother of Dragons did not count. Funeral rites and nothing more--closing the eyes of a whore, sealing the lips of a dragon, all those years hounding Tysha like a ghost. Why, he’d felt too old for affection. Too put off, too tired, too dead.

“Yes,” she replied, sounding satisfying. He kissed her again for good measure; could tell she wanted to tell him something, and that something would probably be political. So, he was stealing what affection he could. The personal and the political often mixed uneasily in Tyrion’s life. He supposed the latter was meant to water down the wine of the former. He really was going a little mad. It’s always like that at first, he warns himself.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” Sansa says. She straightens up, hair in a little more disarray as it falls over her shoulders and his instinct was to let some of it trail through his fingers.

“Yes, so we’ve agreed,” he said, eyes still on her hair. He notices she’s eyeing him, with a face that is looking for his approval.

“Well,” she said, “Which part would you like to hear first?”

“Is this a case of good news and bad news?”

She tilts her head mischievously, but even this is courteous--trained and ladylike. She was doing things to him, and it had only lately occurred to him that she was wearing perfume. It was winter, so instead of lemons and baby’s breath, she smelled of pine and oxblood pomegranate.

“I always take my cups bitter and sweet,” Tyrion declared grandly, “Pour them both, I’m at the ready,”

“The children,” Sansa begins, “I cannot--I cannot have a child named Eddard Lannister. Do you understand?”

Her face is stony, or perhaps not so hard as it is unreadable. This is a new tactic, something she had learned while Tyrion was gone. He’s quickly thumbing through two different scenarios--the one where he has children with Sansa Stark, and the one where his sons will not bear the family name. The scenario where he really is the last bloody Lannister.

“You want to have children with me? Or you don’t?”

She looks momentarily hurt, but then so many things have hurt her.

“I’m proposing a matrilineal marriage,” she said, “With you,”

She leaves a pregnant pause, wanting to append this statement, but she waits for his first response.

“As you said,” Tyrion looks at his hands, “I am the last Lannister. But it’s a bloody name, and given this land a bloody time. It fits me ill and always has,”

She storms through the steeple of his hands and grabs both fiercely. In the past she might have simply let it be at that, but this time she lifted his hands to her lips and breathed her next words over his knuckles.

“You’re the only one who wore it well. Please know it pains me to think this necessary,”

She gently drops his hands.

She continues, “But the fact of the matter is the best in my family were ripped apart by Lannister, by Frey, by so many. Arya has her list, and I have the family name. I have dreamed of many things, Tyrion--”

She looks at him when she says his name. It is the first time he had heard his name in her mouth in what felt like years.

“--and I have dreamed of Eddard and Robb and Rickon being honored in my issue. All my brothers are dead, but I want one of them to sit on the throne when we’re gone,”

“My lady, if that is your wish, then why don’t you marry one of the other houses? The lion can die, yes, sure,” (did he really mean that?) “But an Eddard Something-or-Another? Surely that’s more to your liking,”

“Yes, I know,” Sansa doesn’t look at him now, “I’m being very selfish. You see, I want Eddard and Robb and Rickon. But, also--”

She does not speak; her hands do not in the least fidget and there is no threat of tears. She is like this an alarmingly long time.

“My lady?”

“Sansa,” she corrects him.

“Sansa.”

Now her facade shifts a degree.

“See, who else would say my name like that?”

Tyrion hates that he knows this, but he and Sansa are cut from the same cloth. He recalls the romances of ladies and dragons, bleeding moons and true love, tall heroes and houses that walk, all of it, how he’d dreamt of nothing else his entire childhood. They are, the both of them, romantics who cannot wield proper swords. They have only their undramatic labor, their words, their armor. Cynicism. Courtesy. And both still wanted, but did not fully expect, a love story.

Tyrion passes a hand over his jaw. “Will lion bow down to wolf, eh?”

“Will lion lie down with the wolf, yes,” Sansa corrects, out of habit, without deliberation. And remarkably, this is said in innocence. Tyrion knows this. It’s why he bursts out laughing, half from tension and half from pure unadulterated amusement. Sansa blushes--prettily, as she always has.

“Well,” Tyrion begins, “If I were speaking easily, the things which are easy to admire of you, my dear, we might get to an answer quickly. I believe I have mentioned your neck before. Your turns of phrase, too, always refreshing. Certainly you are in that prime window of fertility, and the names Eddard and Robb and Rickon I have always found so wholesomely assuring. Then, my Queen, there is your hair and your eyes and your cheekbones, which have been said to have cut a man to pieces once, though that might have only been personal experience. What else? Sunlight becomes you. Winter enhances you. Silks were made for you. You could make wolf’s teeth look like porcelain--and so you do. There is the small boon of the Seven Kingdoms behind you, with none so loyal as the North you helped unite. You see, I feel as though I know you when I say these things, but I still don’t know how you did--how you do--any of them. And these are just the things that are easy to say. The rest--my lips are sealed, where’s my wine?”

Again she tilts her head, less mischievously this time.

“You say such pretty things,” she said.

“And you want to believe them?” Tyrion replied, “You would like proof? I cannot blame you,”

Sansa does not nod, only shifts her eyes.

“Would you like wine, my lord--Tyrion?” she asks, as way of a breather.

“Just an inch, thank you,”

They share the wine with a slice of silence. The evening shift brings a maid to stoke the fire and prepare the chamber next door. Tyrion acts and is received as if invisible. The maid and queen exchange brief yet intimate words--Sansa knows all of her maid’s names, and this one is, like so many others, called Jeyne--and then the maid is gone. Sansa and Tyrion are officially, as it was not before, alone.

“What were you writing to the Tarly’s?” Tyrion asked.

“Condolences,” Sansa said. She has poured more wine and tempered it with water. “And a proposal,”

“Of?”

“I would gladly discuss this with you, Tyrion,” the curve of her lips is faint, “If we weren’t already in the middle of a more pressing council,”

“You’ve caught on to my cheap tricks,” Tyrion shrugged. Her next question catches him off guard:

“And what are the difficult things?”

“Pardon? Difficult things?”

“You gave me easy compliments,” she reminded him, “And hinted that there are also difficult ones. What else troubles you?”

How many times would Tyrion Lannister be cordially lodged in the chambers of a beautiful queen and have the chance to sweep her off her feet the only way he could—with words? Tyrion sets down his half-drunk wine. This is so he can weigh something else. To uphold the Lannister line? Or to be the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms? In the latter, his actual capacity would not change much—a crown would be made for him, a title prepared for him, but his place of power would be not much different from being Hand to the Queen. He could probably get away with opening a vineyard. And he’d be surrounded by his children—his Stark children. His family name ends here—he had never expected to sire anyone (not even bastards)—so why does this last surrender fill him with more than a little grief? He thought he had used up most of it.

He looks up to see the tears in Sansa’s eyes. Jon would have cried too, he thinks absently. Perhaps even Jamie would shed a tear. Cersei, Dany—they would not. Tyrion thinks of his late father Lord Tywin dead on the privy. He thinks of Jamie willingly taking Cersei with him to the grave. And all those fair-haired cousins, burnt beyond recognition or else eternally frozen--every single last one of them taken by yet another war. The Lannister name had died already, when he’d been busy making other plans.

“Sansa,” This one breath seems to restore her own breathing. Think of that! Tomorrow at court she’ll be the one taking their breath away, this queen with her forehead scraping the heavens and her finely groomed poise, her softly-spoken and no-bars-held resolve. But here, in the only privacy to be afforded in their marriage, Tyrion has the privilege of taking the queen’s breath away. Intoxication, and for once it’s not from wine.

“Sansa dearest, nothing troubles me,” he smiles like he’s got her now. Catches the knowing in her eyes. Loves her for that too.

“Then tell me your difficult things,” she whispered.

Tyrion clears his throat.

“We’ll be married again, perhaps next week, even tomorrow if you like,”

He said this entirely in the tone and mannerisms of a proper Hand of the Queen, and he knows this will gently infuriate her. He had missed her gentle fury, her innocence, he had missed her when he had barely known her. He had glimpsed what lingered of the old that night, and by this point he was choosing to live dangerously in the abandonment to the idea that this could work out for him. That he really was her choice and not her convenience. Even her convenience was a lot to ask for.

“And I’ll tell you why we are to be married, since you’re so eager,” Tyrion continued, his tone remaining implacable and dry, textbook, “Yes, I’ll tell you some difficult things. I won’t bother telling them well. Here, I’ll list them for you. How’s that? The first difficult thing is your smile. You keep it hidden very well. You time its appearance to some inner mechanism I do not have access to, that I cannot study or parse. Second difficult thing. Your heritage. You are a wolf, Sansa. I suppose our children will be as well. You are a wolf who runs in the guise of silk, and so no one expects your teeth until they already have blood on their clothes. From the hands of one who is strong, but soft. Perhaps that is why you go the godswood still—silence makes us more of what we are, doesn’t it? It helps you to keep what’s left of you at the core, that softness that cannot survive in the outside world. At your core, yes—or what’s that overwrought word, I think it was ‘soul?’ Yes, that is the most difficult thing, your majesty, it is the fact you have a soul. Not that I’m an expert—it’s just that I know soulless people so well and you are not one of them,”

Now she is not breathing. Now Tyrion has nothing more to say. Even if he wanted to, he has only silence now. He could busy himself with the wine, he could fidget his hands, he could offer her so many things but he’s already given her all the goodness he didn’t think he had left. He really means it; he knows this is a last chance.

The Queen of the Andals stands. She does not look down on him, but over him, at the door of her chambers.

“It has been a long watch, has it not?” she asks. He grabs her hand and kisses it, so grateful, wishing he could be polite and tell her it wasn’t necessary, not tonight, things could wait. But still he doesn’t have any other words. He doesn’t want to crowd up the ones that are already there. He thinks he’ll let them linger.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man, I really don't know that much in-depth stuff about the GOT universe. I've simply been binge-watching on the TV series and fan theories for season 8. And Sansa and Tyrion and Sansa/Tyrion slowly took over my life; seriously, it happened in slo-mo. Like a horror movie. I hate being this attached guys, because this is GOT. If I go into the endgame with high hopes of my Tyrion/Sansa surviving-and-doing-a-psuedo-Queen-Elizabeth thing, I'm only increasing my odds for heartbreak and agony. GAH WHY. 
> 
> Anyhow, wasn't sure if the whole godswood/iron throne melding thing would make sense at all in the actual story but it seemed cool in my head. I also kept the exact rise of Sansa to power and what went down with the White Walkers very vague because 1) that's too long and complicated and nobody's got time for that in a one-shot and 2) I've got my own theories, and I'm still parsing them out. 
> 
> As for Tyrion's portrayal, I took elements from the books where he's elegant and courtly and yet forthright with Sansa on their wedding night. "In the dark, I'm the Knight of Flowers. I could be good to you." Dreamy, and I can't believe GRRM wrote it. And seems to continue to write it in, in subtle and agonizing ways (keep in mind I'm only vaguely aware of most of the books' goings-ons). Then, I went ahead and gave Tyrion the book's version of the scars he sustained at Blackwater--I wouldn't be surprised if the show did something like this to Tyrion towards the end should he survive--since they won't be calling the make-up/CGI department for dozens more episodes. Hm, perhaps. (But Peter Dinklage's face doesn't deserve--). 
> 
> And I am not a fan of the angle that Tyrion loves Dany at all, but I explored that dynamic here because, well, who wouldn't at least be impressed by her? My impression of Dany is that she really is more force than personality at this point--but PD definitely worked some angst into his performance as Tyrion during those scenes with Dany, and Tyrion is a complex and very physical character, so it makes sense that he was still struggling with love throughout the series. (In my head this could go a million ways but what I like about shipping Tyrion/Sansa is that I actually think it could work, both thematically and practically). 
> 
> So, anyhow, my own mania wrote this piece out. Will need editing, I'm sure, but it scratches an itch and this couple needs more love. 
> 
> And what song pairs well with this one-shot? Bahamas' "Lost in the Light." Cheers!


End file.
